Clouded Glass
by Desert.Moon
Summary: The Fourth Kazekage makes one last attempt to assassinate his youngest son, hiring the best he can find. But will Katsuye Kaminari, a missingnin from Cloud with a lifedebt to repay, really have a chance of killing Gaara of the Sand?


A/N:

This story is not written only be me, but by my good friend Ichigo. It's not a roleplay, exactly—instead, we each write whole chunks of the story (usually about a page, though not always), and then send it back. So if you see different writing styles, that's 'cause there's two of us. :D

---

"Do I frighten you?"

It frightened _her_, but hidden behind the tree, she wasn't the one to whom the demon spoke. Sasuke Uchiha was its opponent, and Sasuke Uchiha was the focus of its attention.

"You are my prey. My _prey!_"

It really wasn't at all what she expected. They had warned her that he was 'emotionally unstable'. She had figured he was a little crazy, but it couldn't be too bad. He had enough control to be powerful enough that they had to hire her. And, not to brag or anything, she was a pretty strong last resort.

She had never anticipated this… this… this demon, this murderer, this _monster_.

Yes, she was afraid. But other than that, she was… determined. Indifferent. She didn't know anything about him, and thus couldn't judge him fairly. After all, she killed people, too.

And that was her job now. Kill. Kill Gaara of the Desert.

Her hand brushed against her slim samurai sword, but did not draw it. She might want to cut in now, but she had to wait. Uchiha might finish him off first anywho. It would make her job a heck of a lot easier.

So she remained hidden behind the tree and continued to observe the match. Uchiha was making various hand signs; he then firmly grasped his left wrist with his right hand. What looked like miniature bolts of blue lightning sprung from his palm. It sounded like birds… chirping.

"What jutsu is this?" she murmured to herself. She _was_ from the Village Hidden Among Clouds, and she was familiar with the majority of all lightning techniques.

Sasuke Uchiha leapt for the demon, left hand bursting with the chirping lightning; in response, the demon leapt at Sasuke, its enormous claw of sand aiming for the dark-haired shinobi. The clash ended with and _bang_ and two subsequent _thuds_ as both shinobi were repulsed and landed on their feet. The hidden kunoichi noticed that Uchiha was covered in black markings, and the demon's claw broke up into grains of sand. He regenerated it, though, and added a tail. She shivered as the transformation grew more beastlike, more terrifying.

No glass littered the ground that she could see, so perhaps the technique had only looked like lightning. In fact, it was just pure bursts of chakra.

_It must have taken a lot out of him_, she reflected. _I'm guessing he's done now._

She was right, of course, as Uchiha collapsed and failed to get up.

The kunoichi seized her sword's hilt, then drew it. Her grip tightened as she braced herself for battle. Frightened as she was, she was a shinobi on a mission. In the blink of an eye, she appeared about three yards in front of the demon. It paid no attention to her, however; he was still focused on Uchiha. She held the sword in front of her with both hands and looked directly at it.

"I'm afraid that I'm your 'prey' now," she said clearly, trying to sound as brave as possible.

Just for a moment, his twisted, hate-filled gaze focused on her. The kunoichi refused to cower before the demon's terrifying, warped visage, but her hands trembled slightly, gripping the hilt of her katana tighter still, until her knuckles were white from the effort.

"Get out of my way!" the demon growled furiously. Not trusting herself to be able to speak firmly beneath that stare, she kept quiet and tried to look determined as well as brave.

When she failed to move, the beast launched itself from the branch it rest on. It came straight toward her, its path as true as a kunai's flight.

The kunoichi raised her sword higher, preparing to defend, but the demon's arm merely swept her out of the way. She collided painfully with a tree; the beast's attention had returned to Uchiha.

This would _not_ do.

She had been hoping to weary him further with a simple battle, using her sword alone. But it did not appear as if Uchiha's efforts had weakened the demon at all. Against her better judgment, she would have to open with more powerful attacks.

She just hoped that the creature wouldn't finish off Uchiha while she prepared.

Pushing herself back to her feet with one hand, the kunoichi closed her eyes, breathed in deeply, and began slowly releasing chakra into her sword.

_I wish I were better informed…_

---

The sterling silver blade of her sword was slowly being devoured by a deep purple. _Just a little more…_

As the purple crawled its way to the tip of her blade, the shinobi formed a plan in her head. _Yes,_ she confirmed to herself, _that should work._

She could feel now that her katana was entirely full of her chakra, glowing purple, ready to go. As she opened her eyes, she saw the demon only a few yards from Uchiha. She aimed her sword at the monster and a bolt of lightning flew from the weapon with an electric ring to it.

The strike hit her mark perfectly—the sand arm of the demon. A cloud of sand hid the creature from her view, but she could still hear Gaara's screams; he was not used to being hit.

_It must have hurt him, but I'm sure it was only a scratch…_

"Who… who are you?" Uchiha managed to ask, despite his pain. He was the type to question anyone who held power, especially if that power was able to faze Gaara.

"Katsuye Kaminari," she replied, a sense of pride in her voice as she spoke.

"I haven't heard of you," he gasped through his pain, and though he said it with more interest than dismissal, Kat's tone quickly soured.

"That's because I tend to work covertly," she said shortly. "And only the people who need knowledge of me have it."

"But I've usually heard of shinobi with such power—"

The kunoichi didn't wait around to continue the conversation; the beast was recovering, and it was only further infuriated, although the arm was not returning. The transformation, however, had not yet been fully reversed; it maintained its tail. She was not out of danger yet.

Katsuye vanished and appeared behind the beast; it spun, attention diverted from the fallen Uchiha.

"Fight me, then," it growled, a feral grin spreading across its face. "Fight me, and I shall kill you, too, and your blood will mingle with my sand."

Kat moved one hand so that it lay against her glowing blade, palm resting on the chakra-warmed metal and facing the demon. Sparks raced up and down the blade, then flung themselves at the beast. They licked hungrily at his, eating up the grains of sand. Infinitesimal shards of glass fell like snow as the heat transformed the sand that coated the demon. It cried out in pain as the sparks reached flesh, then lunged for the kunoichi.

_His thirst for blood is what keeps him going…_

Kat easily blocked its attack by knocking it off course with her sword. The demon flew through the air for a few seconds before colliding with a tree trunk and sliding down the rigid, rough bark on his back.

_He _must_ be finished off by now,_ Katsuye though as the demon landed on a branch and didn't get up right away.

Except he wasn't finished. Kat took a closer look and saw grains of sand crumbling down from the point of his collision.

"So, he still has some sand left to command. And with that, he can make more… Although, I still have _that_ jutsu," Katsuye murmured to herself.

The demon got up and stood on his two feet, knees bent. Grains of sand surrounded his feet, the amount of it increasing little by little. One of his hands clenched at his forehead; he let it slip a little so it covered his right eye.

"Mother…" he muttered. "The BLOOD… I'll make it spill all over, and it will all be yours…"

Kat couldn't help but feel a brief stab of pity for the boy beneath the demon. He was obviously in pain, emotional as well as physical, and she wished again that she knew the whole story.

But she couldn't let that get in her way. She had someone to save, and there was no way to do that without the money this mission would bring.

The Fourth Kazekage paid well for the assassination of his son.

That alone gave Kat a sick feeling, but she drew on everything she had ever known as a shinobi and stood a little straighter. It was odd: Usually, she had no trouble distancing herself from her missions. She had been shinobi too long to let emotions get in the way now, but she still kept thinking about how it was this boy's father who wanted him dead.

Maybe that was why Gaara's attack caught her off-guard. Reflexes caused her sword to come up just in time to stop a wave of sand from engulfing her. She dodged to the side and the flood of gold crashed to the branch, dispersing. Concentrating chakra into her feet, Kat pushed off toward Gaara, leaping straight for him. The katana's blade sparked as it made contact with his shoulder, and splintered glass fell like rain.

The demon growled; the beastlike arm swept into her side like a tidal wave and tossed her through the branches as if she were a ragdoll. Kat swore breathlessly and struggled to regain her feet as the demon advanced on her.

"You weren't even a challenge," it sneered. "You weren't _worthwhile_ prey. Why did you want so urgently to fight me? Protecting the Uchiha? You're not even _from_ that pitiful Konoha."

Warm blood stained Kat's side where the demon's claws had raked her. Beneath his bloodthirsty gaze, the powerful assassin felt reduced to a terrified Genin once again. She couldn't believe she was so affected; she had faced terror before…

Before the demon had quite reached Kat, an orange blur appeared in front of her. Katsuye moaned as Naruto Uzumaki—and about twenty of his clones, Kami help her—materialized on the branch between her and Gaara.

Rescued by a Genin. How humiliating.

"Look, lady, I don't know who you are, but—"

"I'm not _that_ much older than you are," she interrupted in a muffled voice, still burning with shame.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," he said obnoxiously. Kat briefly entertained the happy thought of strangling him.

The demon looked furious now, more than before. He snarled something vicious at Naruto, who responded. The ensuing battle left Kat reeling—because she had been little more than a momentary distraction to the demon.

_Why?_

Darn it, she knew she was better than this! And she was being counted on…

When the Shukaku took complete hold on Gaara and revealed its true from, fury rose within Katsuye and she slipped off to Suna, determined to wring the Kazekage's neck.


End file.
